Last year was a lost season for Drury at the most inopportune time. Drury revealed early in the season he had struggled with migraines throughout his time in Arizona and that issue plagued him again early in 2018 and cost him his job with the Yankees. He went to Triple-A and raked to a .294/.403/.447 line while there and was eventually traded to Toronto in the J.A. Happ deal. The good news is that he remains in a friendly run environment and should have a spot on the diamond to pick up where he left off in 2017. He has fared better against lefties throughout his career, and has multi-positional abilities even though he is only third-base eligible on draft day. He is a decent flier in single-league formats given his power potential, and should be an easy guy to grab very late in drafts due to his horrendous 2018 season at the big-league level. Read Past Outlooks

$Signed a one-year, $1.3 million contract with the Blue Jays in January of 2019, avoiding arbitration.

Third straight multi-hit game

3BToronto Blue Jays

May 24, 2019

Drury went 2-for-4 with a double in Thursday's loss to the Red Sox.

ANALYSISThe utility player is catching fire at the plate, collecting two hits in each of the last three games with four of the knocks being two-baggers. Drury's .222/.257/.399 slash line on the season remains poor, however, and with Cavan Biggio and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. on their way up from Triple-A Buffalo, Drury will face more competition for playing time around the diamond.

This section compares his stats with all batting seasons from the previous three seasons (minimum 400 plate appearances)*. The bar represents the player's percentile rank. For example, if the bar is halfway across, then the player falls into the 50th percentile for that stat and it would be considered average.

* Exit Velocity and Barrels/PA % are benchmarked against this season's data (min 100 PA) and Hard Hit Rate is benchmarked against last season's data (min 400 PA). See here for more exit velocity/barrels stats plus an explanation of current limitations with that data set.

BB/K

Walk to strikeout ratio

BB Rate

The percentage of plate appearances resulting in a walk.

K Rate

The percentage of plate appearances resulting in a strikeout.

BABIP

Batting average on balls in play. Measures how many of a batter’s balls in play go for hits.

On Base Percentage. A measure of how often a batters reaches base. Roughly equal to number of times on base divided by plate appearances.

SLG

Slugging Percentage. A measure of the batting productivity of a hitter. It is calculated as total bases divided by at bats.

OPS

On base plus slugging. THe sum of a batter's on-base percentage and slugging percentage.

wOBA

Weighted on-base average. Measures a player's overall offensive contributions per plate appearance. wOBA combines all the different aspects of hitting into one metric, weighting each of them in proportion to their actual run value.

Exit Velocity

The speed of the baseball as it comes off the bat, immediately after a batter makes contact.

Hard Hit Rate

A measure of contact quality from Sports Info Solutions. This stat explains what percentage of batted balls were hit hard vs. medium or soft.

Barrels/PA

The percentage of plate appearances where a batter had a batted ball classified as a Barrel. A Barrel is a batted ball with similar exit velocity and launch angle to past ones that led to a minimum .500 batting average and 1.500 slugging percentage.

Jose Peraza's strikeout rate has skyrocketed, and he hasn't walked yet this season. Jeff Erickson shows how to find that and more on RotoWire's Plate Discipline Changes, one of the site's new features for 2019.

Dave Regan offers up one move that each MLB team could make that would have fantasy impact, like having the Braves sign Craig Kimbrel.

Past Fantasy Outlooks

2018

2017

2016

2015

Instead of taking a step forward at the plate as many hoped he would, Drury took a step back in his age-24 season. His wRC+ and wOBA both fell 10 points from his 2016 sample, and the batted-ball data suggests he was fortunate to finish where he did (.310 xwOBA). Drury continued to drive the ball into the ground roughly 50 percent of the time, and more than 10 percent of his flyballs stayed in the infield. Improved defense was his saving grace, but Drury still couldn't avoid falling into a part-time role by the end of the season. His plate skills are a little shaky (5.8 percent walk rate, 21.5 percent strikeout rate), and his backslide against left-handed pitching was particularly concerning. While he'll play in a favorable hitting environment following the trade to New York and the second-base position has thinned out, the lack of track record and uncertainty of playing time make Drury a volatile asset.

Drury put together a solid 2016 season playing all over the field for the Diamondbacks. He played 89 games in the outfield, but also made 29 appearances at third, 16 appearances at second and even made one appearance at first base. While not an Opening Day starter at any of these positions, Drury was still able to log 461 at-bats, and he slugged 16 home runs to go along with 53 RBI. One of the reasons Drury found himself in the lineup so often was his improvement against right-handed pitching. In 2015, he hit just .152 against righties (albeit in just 33 at-bats). Last year, he bumped that number up to .283 while continuing to mash against lefties (.304 average in 2015, .280 last season). Drury will compete for a regular role at second base, but he will get plenty of at-bats whether or not he has a set position to begin the year.

Acquired from Atlanta in 2013 as part of the Justin Upton trade, Drury made his MLB debut in 2015 after a strong few years in the minors. Drury’s cup of coffee in the big leagues consisted of 20 games, in which he registered 59 plate appearances, hitting .214 with two home runs and eight RBI. A career .285 hitter in the minors, Drury could improve at the plate as he adjusts to big league pitching. Drury only hit five home runs in 567 plate appearances last year at Double-A and Triple-A, though he did belt 23 in 2014 playing at the High-A and Double-A levels. Speed doesn’t figure to be a big part of his game going forward — he's yet to steal more than four bases in any of his professional seasons. His defensive flexibility (he played at second, third and shortstop last year with Arizona) should help him get enough starts to be useful in deeper formats, and his advanced hit tool makes him worth following in shallower leagues as well.

A throw-in from the trade that sent Justin Upton to the Braves in 2013, Drury has hit at every stop since joining the Diamondbacks. The 22-year-old third baseman hit .302, .300, and .294 at Low-A, High-A, and Double-A, respectively, over the past two seasons, and has managed to keep his strikeout rate below 20.0% at each stop. Last season, Drury hit 23 home runs in 594 plate appearances between High-A and Double-A, but he is unlikely to ever be an above-average power threat in the major leagues, relative to his position. It's unclear when the Diamondbacks might give him consideration to compete for their third-base job following the signing of Cuban free agent Yasmany Tomas this winter. If Drury can continue to flash a plus hit tool in a return stop to Double-A and a likely promotion to Triple-A during the 2015 season, he may begin to force the issue in 2016.